


How Do I Know I’m Good?

by M_D_Wilson



Category: SSF, Super Science Friends
Genre: Gen, imposter syndrome, there is talk of not feeling real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:02:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_D_Wilson/pseuds/M_D_Wilson
Summary: Children ask difficult questions sometimes. As the team psychiatrist, Freud assumed no question could be too difficult for him to answer.Albert was the exception to the rule in every case, though, and that applied to this as well.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	How Do I Know I’m Good?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is just a brief thing based on some of my own thoughts/experiences. It’s cathartic to put them to paper. Basically, Albert feels like he’s tricking people into thinking he’s good. It’s a classic case of Imposter Syndrome. There is some talk of feeling fake and not feeling real, so there’s your warning for that if that content is upsetting for you! Enjoy this look into a character dynamic that I enjoy too much, and desperately want more content for.

“Dr. Freud, can I ask you something?” Albert said. The doctor looked up from his desk, eyeing the fidgety young boy over the pile of charts he had to fill. 

“Is it of great importance? If it can wait, I’m quite busy charting...” Freud replied, trailing off as he waited for an answer. Albert swallowed around the lump that had suddenly taken up residence in his throat, and shook his head. 

“It can wait, Dr. Freud,” he whispered. Freud nodded and went back to his paperwork. Albert left the doctor’s room without a fuss. Good. Freud was of the mind that too many children remained too dependent on adults for answers as they got older. True growth of character, he mused, could only come from self-reflection and the diligence it took to find one’s own answers in life. If Albert hadn’t figured it out by the time he finished, he would help him. 

_ It never hurt anyone to put in a little effort, now had it? _

Charting was taxing work. The most boring part of any medical profession, so Freud thought, as it boiled down to copying patient information to simply keep a record of it. There were only so many times he could write down a teammate's recent blood pressure reading before he wanted to take a pen to both his eyes. He squinted down at the patient files and the hastily scribbled notes he’d taken during his daily rounds. 

“Mother knew I’d make a doctor by my ghastly handwriting...” Freud muttered, clenching the pen tightly a moment before he relaxed. “Overly tight grips won’t magically make your handwriting neater,” he said, scolding himself quietly before he went back to work. The minutes and hours ticked by. The muscles in his hand and neck had ached for a while but now began to cramp as the doctor hunched over his charts. 

“... Hey, asswipe!” Tapputi snapped, pulling Freud from his work suddenly. He glanced up at her, startled by her tone and even more so by her expression. 

“You’re angry,” Freud stated. 

“You’re goddamn right I’m angry! You have  _ two  _ jobs!” Tapputi said, jabbing an old, gnarled finger at his chest. “Make sure our bodies aren’t going to shit!  _ Make sure our minds aren’t going to shit _ ! How the hell can you do one and fuck up the other?” she asked. Freud blinked at the accusation, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. 

“I do not tell you how to do your  _ job _ , do not tell me how to do mine,” he said. His voice had fallen flat, his facial features relaxing into a blank look that only seemed to further rile the old woman. 

“Nobody has to tell me how to do my job because  _ I  _ don’t fuck mine up!” Tapputi yelled. “Put the damn charts away, and go see about the boy! He won’t come out of his room.  _ Everyone _ can hear him crying,” she demanded.

“... Einstein is crying?” Freud repeated. Tapputi nodded, some of that anger finally draining away to be replaced with exhaustion. 

“He’s locked himself in his room. He won’t answer to any of us, he just keeps saying he needs to talk to you,” she explained. “... Freud, you  _ need  _ to take this more seriously,” she said. There was a subtle tremor to her voice, every syllable quivering slightly as tears slid down her face.

“Tapputi…” Freud whispered, pushing his chair away from the desk. He rolled his neck and shoulders to work out some of the tension and walked to the crying witch doctor. 

“He’s a kid, Freud. A  _ child _ . He doesn’t… Kids don’t know all the answers, and they don’t know how to deal with their feelings. We have to help them-nurture them-make sure they know they can talk to us. Make sure he knows he can talk to  _ you _ ,” she said. Freud nodded dumbly, his jaw working as he tried to come up with some magic words that would make it all better. 

“Tapputi-”

“Don’t you  _ dare  _ apologize to me, Freud. You go to Albert’s room and apologize to  _ him _ . He’s the one that needs to hear it,” she warned. She turned away from him, sniffling as she wiped away her tears with the hem of her apron. 

_ “You can’t expect him to be like other kids, Freud. This is all he’s ever known.” _

With that, Tapputi left the office. Freud started after her but hesitated just inside his doorway. He strained his ears, his eyes narrowing slightly before widening. Far down the hall, over Darwin’s concerned whines, he could hear Albert crying. 

_ “Shit.”  _

Freud found himself moving without thinking. He marched out his office and down the hall, absentmindedly giving Darwin a quick pat on the head as he passed him. 

“... We thought Dogwin could get him to come out,” Marie Curie muttered. Tesla was fretting off the side, drumming his metal fingers against the banister of the stairs lightly. 

“Now he’s sad too!” Tesla added, glancing over at the giant, grey Samoyed. He took up half the hallway with his moping, adding in an occasional, mournful howl as if to harmonize with Albert’s cries. 

“Get Darwin out of here. His mind will be too clouded with thoughts of helping Albert to be able to focus on shifting back to his human form,” Freud demanded. Marie Curie gave him a mock salute, then ran down the hall. The sudden movement and excitement in her voice as she called Darwin caught his attention. He followed her slowly at first, then let out a low bark before he ran after her. 

“... I don’t think I’ll be much help here, I can… See if Churchill knows what tea to brew for a sore throat or headache. The usual things one would associate with a bout of crying,” Tesla muttered. He didn’t wait for Freud to reply and took his leave. Typical. Freud caught himself from rolling his eyes, remembering the way he’d so easily dismissed Albert earlier. It was hardly fair to judge Tesla for his emotional ineptitude when it paled in comparison to his own. He shook his head to clear those dreary thoughts and knocked on Albert’s door. There was a pause in the crying, a shuffling behind the locked door that had Freud holding his breath. 

“Go away! Please, just… Go away,” Albert called through the door. On the other side, he was leaning against it heavily. He still shook, the occasional muffled sob tearing through him. He didn’t want the others to see him like this, especially not Marie Curie! She already did so much for him and treated him with kid gloves. He didn’t want her to think he was even worse off than she’d already thought he was! 

“... Einstein, would you still like to ask me something?” Freud asked. Albert froze, then scrambled to his feet so he could unlock his bedroom door. It flung open, revealing a red, white, and blue blur that threw himself at the doctor. Freud staggered back, steadied himself, and wrapped his arms around the crying boy that clung to him. “You should sit down, ja?” Freud suggested. He hesitated, then brushed Albert’s hair back from his face. 

“... Okay,” Albert whispered hoarsely. He squeezed his arms around Freud one last time as if hugging the doctor would be enough to make everything okay. Then he pulled away, and finally wiped his face. 

“Let’s go to my office, does that sound good?” Freud asked. Albert nodded, then let out a little sniffle before he held out one of his hands. It took the doctor a moment to catch on, but he smiled in a tired sort of way before he took the offered hand. Albert stuck to his side during the walk to his office, his glassy eyes staring at everything and nothing in particular. 

“... Am I going to have to sit on the chair couch?” Albert asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the pair. 

“The  _ what _ ?” Freud asked, his lips twitching into a teasing grin. 

“The chair couch! It’s sort of a chair, sort of a couch. The thing people always lay on when you talk to them?” Albert elaborated. He felt a wave of embarrassment hit him, blush dusting across his cheeks as he realized he’d fouled something up. 

“We call it a chaise lounge, but I suppose chair couch is also accurate,” Freud mused. “Yes, you’ll lie on the chaise lounge. Crying saps us of energy, and being able to lie down on something comfortable will help you,” he said. Albert nodded, lapsing back into silence as they walked down the hall. The chaise lounge always sounded really nice. It would be especially nice since he felt so tired now… 

“Why does crying make me sleepy?” Albert asked, sniffling slightly before he rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. 

“Many reasons,” Freud began, gesturing vaguely at his head. “Like all things, it starts in the body. Think of crying as a method of self-soothing. When you cry, it tires your body physically. This is because of the fact that when most people cry, their heart rate will increase while the amount of oxygen they breathe in will decrease. This lack of oxygen will physically tire your body, and lead to that drowsy feeling,” he explained. 

“But that isn’t all of it, is it?” Albert asked. Freud grinned and motioned for Albert to step into his office. 

“It isn’t! There is also the mental impact crying has on the body,” Freud said. Albert settled down on the chaise lounge and looked over at the doctor expectantly. Freud took a seat at his desk but left his usual pen and pad of paper in the drawer. As useful as it was to write his patient’s revelations and his own theories as they came to him, he’d noticed that Albert had a negative reaction to it. He would talk openly about his troubles a while, notice that Freud was taking notes, and then slowly but surely the conversation would peter out into nothing. 

“What’s the mental part?” Albert prompted. 

“Well, crying causes your brain to release doses of special endorphins. These chemicals cause the body to relax, which can make you feel drowsy,” Freud said. “It ties into the physical aspect as well. There is very little about the human body that is purely physical or mental in nature, most of it works in conjunction with the other aspect,” he added. Albert frowned, his brows knitting together. 

“... So I get sleepy when I cry because of the physical reaction my body has, and because of the weird chemicals my brain makes?” he asked. Freud nodded. 

“Precisely! It’s a little more complex than that, of course, but that is the basics of why crying makes you sleepy,” he said. Freud sat up straight in his chair, his grin becoming a flat, serious line as he stared at Albert. “... Something tells me that isn’t the question you originally had in mind, was it?” he asked quietly. Albert paled, his hands coming to fidget with the hem of his red shirt a bit. 

“Um… N-no, it wasn’t,” Albert said. He fell silent a moment, then rolled over to face the office wall. 

“...Einstein?” Freud prompted, an eyebrow raising at the sudden movement. 

“It’s easier to talk if I don’t have to look at you,” Albert mumbled. Freud began to nod, realized the child wasn’t looking at him to see it and stopped. “Dr. Freud, I don’t…” Albert began, trailing off as he searched for the right words to say. 

_ “I don’t know if I’m really a good person, and I wanted to ask if you knew if I was.”  _

Freud’s eyes widened in shock, the question striking closer to home than he’d expected. He took his glasses off a moment and set them on his desk. 

“Albert, you  _ are  _ a good person,” Freud said. “Why would you think you aren’t?” he asked, rubbing his temples in some attempt to shoo away the oncoming migraine. 

_ Silence.  _

“... Albert, you haven’t done a single thing to make you a bad person. Why do you doubt yourself?” Freud pressed. Albert sat up in the chaise lounge suddenly, his panic-stricken face sending a horrible chill down the doctor’s spine. 

“I think of bad things sometimes. I think of horrible, twisted things, and-and I don’t think I can  _ be  _ a good person if I have such rotten thoughts,” Albert said. His breathing became shallow, and he pulled his knees up to his chest as he tried to hug himself as tightly as he could. “Sometimes, I c-can convince myself that those thoughts don’t really count because of the good things I do,” Albert whispered. The words came slowly at first, then picked up speed. He couldn’t quite look at Freud in the eyes, and his small frame shuddered as he started crying again. “But if I just do good things because I  _ need  _ to feel good, then I don’t know if it’s still good, Dr. Freud. I don’t know if they count if I just-” he cut himself off, a wretched sob clawing its way from his throat. “I-if I just do it to make  _ myself  _ feel good! Can I even say I’m good if I only do good things to have that for myself? So wh-when I doubt it, I can look back and say ‘I have to be good, look at the good things I’ve done!’ Then it’s all just  _ fake _ !” he shouted. 

_ “That’s all I wanted to ask, is if I’m really good or just really good at lying to myself and everyone else.” _

“Albert Einstein, that is  _ enough! _ ” Freud snapped. The harshness to his tone shut Albert down, leaving the room quiet besides the occasional, shuddering sob. Then there was the scraping of his chair on the floor, and Freud was suddenly standing in front of the child. 

_ “Albert, there will always be some voice that says you’re a fraud!”  _

Freud was gripping the small boy by the shoulders, an unusual shaky quality to his voice as he spoke. Albert had never seen an adult get that upset before, much less the team’s distant, stoic doctor. It frightened him to a degree, the strange vulnerability to the adult’s frame and voice. Stranger so, it comforted him. The doctor pulled him into a bear hug, and let the youngest of his patients cry against his shoulder. 

“... Everyone has that voice, Albert,” Freud eventually murmured. “It takes different forms and whispers different lies to suit its evil purposes, but  _ everyone  _ has heard it before,” he said. “Lawyers, politicians,  _ doctors _ , they all have heard it’s devious muttering before,” he said. 

“D-doctors like you?” Albert whispered. 

“Yes!  _ Yes!  _ The voice is little more than lurid falsities, something that you must understand to be untrue,” Freud said. 

“But what if it’s right, and I’m not good?” Albert asked, pulling away to stare up at the doctor. “What if I’m secretly a bad person, and I’ve just managed to fool everyone!” he cried. 

“Albert! You  _ are  _ a good person! You do good things!” Freud insisted. 

“But I don’t always do them for the right reasons! Sometimes it’s to tell people I did something good, so they can tell me I’m good, and I can believe it because it’s coming from someone else!” Albert argued. 

“ _ Everyone  _ does that! Nobody does good things all the time for the simple want to do something good. We  _ all  _ like to feel good about ourselves, Albert, and it’s easiest to do that by doing something good,” Freud explained. He offered the small boy a half-grin and brushed his hair back from his face once more. “Even if you do a good thing for a ‘selfish’ reason, you’ve still done something good. That doesn’t somehow sully that good deed. It just means you’re human,” he said. 

“... Means I’m human?” Albert repeated. Freud’s eyes widened slightly, and he nodded emphatically. 

“ _ Delightfully  _ human,  _ completely  _ human, as human as Marie Curie or I am!” Freud exclaimed. “You’re  _ good _ , Albert, you’re  _ really  _ and  _ truly  _ good,” he said. 

“... And what if when I leave your office, I forget that?” Albert asked, speaking quietly. 

“Then you check in with one of the adults,” Freud decided. “It takes time to become sure of yourself. Time, patience, effort, and help from… From your family,” he finished. 

_ “Albert, we will always be here to remind you that you’re good if you forget.” _

The young boy nodded and wiped his eyes one last time. While Albert knew this newfound belief in himself would likely waver, he also knew that he had five people he could depend on to help him become steady again. 

_ With time, patience, effort, and help from his family, he was suddenly very certain that he could do almost anything.  _

  
  



End file.
